LONDON: The people of France and the Netherlands have spoken. The proposed European constitution is dead. Long live ... ! What? It’s up to pro-Europeans to say. We shouldn’t allow the Eurosceptics to seize the agenda. We have to react to and cope with the “no” in a positive and constructive way.

The European Union is the most original and successful experiment in political institution-building since the second world war. It has reunited Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It has influenced political change as far away as Ukraine and Turkey — not, as in the past, by military, but by peaceful means. Through its economic innovations, it has played a part in bringing prosperity to millions, even if its recent level of growth has been disappointing. It has helped one of the very poorest countries in Europe, Ireland, to become one of the richest. It has been instrumental in bringing democracy to Spain, Portugal and Greece, countries that had previously been dictatorships.

It is not the EU’s failure but its very successes that trouble people. Reuniting western and eastern Europe would have seemed an impossible dream less than 20 years ago. But even in the new member states people ask: “Where does all this stop?” Even for those who profit most, the EU can feel like an agent of globalisation rather than a means of adapting to and reshaping it.

These feelings tend to stimulate an emotional return to the apparent safe haven of the nation. Yet if the EU were abolished overnight people would feel less rather than more secure in their national and cultural identities. Let’s say, for example, that the Eurosceptics in Britain got their way and the United Kingdom quit the EU altogether. Would the British then have a clearer sense of identity? Would they have more sovereignty to run their own affairs?

No, they would not, is the answer to both questions. The Scots and Welsh would almost certainly continue to look to the EU anyway, perhaps leading to the break-up of the United Kingdom. And Britain — or England — would lose rather than gain sovereignty, if sovereignty means real power to influence the wider world.

The paradox is that, in the contemporary world, nationalist or isolationist thinking can be the worst enemy of the nation and its interests. The EU is an arena where formal sovereignty can be exchanged for real power, national cultures can be nurtured and economic success improved. The EU is better placed to advance national interests than nations could possibly do acting alone: in commerce, immigration, law and order, the environment, defence and many other areas.

Let us start to think of the EU not as an “unfinished nation” or an “incomplete federal state”, but instead as a new type of cosmopolitan project. People feel afraid of a possible federal super-state and they are right to do so. A resurgent Europe can’t rise up from the ruins of nations. The persistence of the nation is the condition of a cosmopolitan Europe; and today, for reasons just given, the reverse is true too. For a long time the process of European integration took place mainly by means of eliminating difference. But unity is not the same as uniformity. From a cosmopolitan point of view, diversity is not the problem; it is the solution.

Following the blocking of the constitution, the future of the EU suddenly seems amorphous and uncertain. But it shouldn’t. Pro-Europeans should ask themselves three questions: Do we want a Europe that stands up for its values in the world? Do we want a Europe that is economically strong? Do we want a Europe that is fair and socially just? The questions are close to rhetorical, because everyone who wishes the EU to succeed must answer positively to all three.

Various quite concrete consequences follow. If Europe is to be heard and valued on the world scene, we cannot declare an end to enlargement; nor can we leave the EU’s system of governance as it is.

Enlargement is the union’s most powerful foreign-policy tool, a means of promoting the spread of peace, democracy and open markets. There is virtually no hope of stabilising the Balkans, for example, if the prospect of EU accession is cut off. The eruption of further conflict there would be a disaster.

The EU will also lose massive potential influence geopolitically if it decides to keep Turkey out. Turkey itself may become riven with conflicts. According to the latest opinion polls, support inside Turkey is waning in the face of the hostility some member states have towards the country’s potential accession. Similar considerations apply to governance. The EU cannot play an effective global role without more political innovation. The proposal to have a single EU foreign minister should be kept in play. More effective means of taking mutual decisions are needed than the cumbersome method left over from the Nice agreements. And the proposals in the constitution to have more consultation with national parliaments before EU policies are instituted are surely both democratic and sensible.

Political and diplomatic influence, however, always reflect economic weight. It is here above all that pro-Europeans must urge the commission and the leaders of member states to action. We know that the “no” votes in France and the Netherlands were motivated substantially by social and economic anxieties — anxieties that fed into the larger fears noted above. Despite its other successes, the European Union is simply not performing well enough economically. It has much lower growth levels than the US, not to mention less developed countries such as India and China. There are 20 million unemployed in the EU, and a further 93 million economically inactive people, many of whom would want to work if they could.

Europe simply must gear up for change. But along with reform we must preserve, and indeed deepen, our concern with social justice. Tony Blair has recently called for a Europe-wide debate on this issue. We believe he is right to do so. Some countries have been remarkably successful in combining economic growth with high levels of social protection and equality — especially the Nordic countries. Let’s see what the rest of Europe can learn from them, as well as from other successful countries around the world.

We write as supporters of the constitution, lengthy and inelegant though it was. But its rejection does allow — let’s hope it forces — Europeans to face up to some basic realities and respond to them. The European Union can be a, if not the, major influence on the global scene in the current century. It is what pro-Europeans should want to happen. Let’s make it happen. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service